In this study, 177 586/686-class CPUs were benchmarked in the frequency range of 60 - 600 MHz. The front-side bus was limited to 100 MHz or less (50 - 100 MHz). Several popular benchmark suites were utilised, including DOS-, Windows-, synthetic-, and game-based platforms. 20 CPUs with different architecture were also compared clock-for-clock at 133 MHz. The hardware used for each test was held constant, thereby allowing the results to be directly comparable from one CPU to another. Approximately 17,000 data points were taken manually and tabulated using Excel.

The raw data is shown at the end of this report, along with another large multi-page table which normalises all data to that of a Pentium P55C 233 MMX. The normalised data is then multiplied by 100 to be more pleasing to the eye. Next, select tests are averaged to represent integer, floating-point, and overall performances.

These test numbers are also indicated by an I, F, or O on the first page of the raw and normalised data tables. I for Integer, F for floating-point, and O for overall.

The instances of (x, y) indicate that x and y results were averaged. This is needed for cases whereby two tests were utilised from a single benchmark suite. Not averaging these values would give more weight to a specific benchmark program. For the Overall average score, some benchmark pairs needed to be averaged to reduce the number of floating point tests to equal the number of integer tests. In this way Integer and Floating-point tests are given the same total weight for the Overall average.

Although the hardware remained constant for these tests, the motherboard had to be changed for different PGA platforms, however all socket 7, socket 3, slot 1, etc CPUs were tested on the same respective motherboard. The exception to this rule was with VIA Nehemiah, Samuel, and Ezra CPUs, which only worked well on certain motherboards. Refer to the footnotes in the raw and normalised data tables for more information.

When transitioning from the socket 7 to the super 7 motherboard, some cross-over exists whereby the same CPU was tested on both motherboards. This was deliberate and was intended to offer some comparison between the i430TX chipset and the VIA MVP3. When browsing though the charts, it may not be immediately obvious if a socket 7 CPU was tested on the socket 7 or super socket 7 motherboard. If the CPU is listed as using a 95 or 100 MHz FSB, e.g. 100 / 3.0x, then it was tested on the super 7 motherboard. If the FSB is between 66 - 83 MHz, assume it is tested on the socket 7 motherboard, unless the name is followed by the -SS7 suffix, in which case it was tested on the super socket 7 motherboard. The subscripts listed on the raw data table also identify which motherboard was used for every CPU. The raw data table also lists the s-spec and CPUID for each CPU tested.

From the raw and normalised data tables, a simpler table was created to more easily identify the results for Integer, Floating-point, Overall, Quake 1, Quake 2, Quake 2 - OpenGL, Doom, PassMark - MMX, and 3DMark99Max. This table can be found under the heading SELECT BENCHMARK RESULTS - LISTED BY CPU. The results from this table are then rearranged in descending order based on benchmark score under the heading INTEGER PERFORMANCE - RANKED IN DESCENDING ORDER, and continued for Floating-point, Overall, Quake 1, Quake 2, etc.

Following the tables are bar charts containing 20 different CPUs - all run at 133 MHz. These charts give a quick means to compare the performance of different CPU architectures on a clock-for-clock basis. These charts offers a quick means to estimate if, for example, a Pentium II outperforms an AMD K6-2 at any mutual frequency. If the PII scores better than the AMD K6-2 at 133 MHz, it is also likely better at 450 MHz. The FSB and multiplier used for the 133 MHz comparison is assumed to be 66 x 2, respectively, unless noted otherwise on the charts.

In most cases, the author of this work tested each CPU, with the exception of the socket 8 and slot 2 CPUs. These CPUs were tested by http://www.vogons.org user luckybob. Some Xeons were also loaned by http://www.vogons.org user m1919 for testing by luckybob. The AMD K5-133 chip was lent by cpu-world.com user jrmunro for testing. The BIOS for the Biostar MB-8500TTD socket 7 motherboard was modified by Jan Steunebrink to allow for usage of AMD K6-2, K6-2+, K6-3, and K6-3+ CPUs. BIOS modifications were also made to allow for the usage of 4.0x multipliers on Cyrix 6x86MX/MII CPUs. Many thanks to all those who assisted in this endeavour!

* FastVid was not enabled for testing. Enabling FastVid may increase highly graphic DOS-based benchmark scores, such as 3Dbench and Doom, when using a Pentium Pro, Pentium II, or Pentium III CPU.

* Note that the 3DNow! patch for Quake II was not used. The knowledge of this patch came after all results were tabulated This patch allows Quake II to utilise 3DNow! instructions and greatly improves the frame rate for 3DNow!-enabled CPUs. For this study, the CPUs which would benefit from this patch are the AMD K6-2, AMD K6-3, AMD K6-3+, AMD K6-2+, IDT WinChip2, and AMD Athlon. There are reports that applying the patch increases frame rates on an AMD K6-2 by ~20%.

Matrox driver versions:

AMD X5, Intel DX4, IBM 5x86, and non-MX Cyrix/IBM 6x86 CPUs required Matrox driver version 4.33c to boot into Windows 98. All other CPUs used Matrox driver version 6.28. Benchmarks requiring OpenGL, which were 3DMark99Max and Quake2 - OpenGL, did not function properly with driver version 4.33c. For these two benchmark programs and with the above noted CPUs only, Matrox driver version 5.07 was used in Windows NT 4.0 to acquire the data.

Speedsys confusion in raw and normalised tables:

Max of Ave L1 Cache (test 31): Tests 31, 32, and 33 are calculated by Speedsys and displayed on the main graph automatically. This is what Speedsys appears to be doing with these speeds: taking the average of non-MMX L1 cache speeds for read, write, and move; taking the average of MMX L1 cache speeds for read, write, and move; displaying the maximum of these two averages on line 31 (for L1), line 32 (for L2), and line 33 (for memory). This seemed somewhat unfair for CPUs which did not have an MMX unit. For the integer tests, I used the average (read, write, move) non-MMX L1 speed (test 34). Test 31, however, was used for part of the Overall score.

Max L1 Cache (test 37): Displays the maximum non-MMX cache speed, that is, the maximum of read, write, or move. In most cases, the L1 read speed is the maximum, but for some CPUs, it is move or write.

In Speedsys and Cachechk tests, whereby two L2 cache speeds exist, e.g. 388 / 168, the second tabulated speed represents the motherboard's L2 cache speed and the first tabulated speed is the CPU's L2 cache. All other incidences of L2 refer to the motherboard's L2 cache.

The tested CPUs are noted on the following page. For the 8 CPUs which have 'simulated' as part of the title, the results for these were linearly extrapolated from other same brand CPUs with similar architecture. When extrapolating the data, at least 3 data points were used to form a linear fit. These host CPUs had the same front-side bus as the CPU being simulated. Very little standard deviation was noted with this linearization.

Some CPUs in the 60-600 MHz range (100 MHz FSB or less) which were not available for testing include the following,

Results for the original Pentium P5 - 60 CPU were extrapolated from P90/P120/P150 data, and similarly, the P5 - 66 data was extrapolated from P100/P133/P166/P200 data. In these cases, the results simulate a P60/P66 on a socket 7 motherboard with "pipeline burst equivalent" Mcache. These simulated P5 results will be elevated by an amount which equates to the natural speed difference between a socket 4 and a socket 7 motherboard. This is perhaps somewhere in the 0-15% range.

In most cases, if you try to run a PII Klamath with a 2.0x multiplier, the onboard L2 cache will get disabled on motherboards with a chipset other than a 440FX. For the VIA Apollo Pro chipset (and 440BX), it was discovered that setting the CLKMUL jumper to 5.0x allows the CPU to run at 2.0x with L2 enabled. While some speed measuring programs may indicate the FSB as 26.7 MHz, multiple tests seem to indicate that the FSB is actually at 66 MHz.

As far as data analysis goes, I think I will leave this task to the reader... at least for now.

man, Pentium pro overdrives are AWESOME chips... Something doesn't sit right with me on the quake 1 results though. I'm going to run that once more and double check. for some reason not only are those chips WINNING but beating chips 2x as fast in mhz. honestly i'd expect to see them just under the p2 xeons.

unless quake 1 dos loves p2-overdrives...

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

The slower CPU speeds show greater benefit from 3DNow! I wonder how much increase the Winchip2 would show?

Do you think it would be of value to patch the Quake II charts to reflect these percent increases? EDIT: Actually, this would also alter the FPU and Overall charts, as well as the RAW/Normalised data tables.

Well, it will probably be too much of a hassle for just this one game. AMD made some pretty heavy tweaks to Quake 2 to really show off the power of 3Dnow!
But it's just Quake 2, I don't think there's really any other game that shows such improvement.
So in the end, its your call. I just found it fun to do these tests .

Maybe, MAYBE they'll do it with id's authorization if they're asked though, since 3dnow is deprecated tech

that said, Quake or Quake2 never had any MMX support either

Voodoo2s aren't 100mhz stockGeforce256 isn't released as a beta on New Years '99 under the Quadro brandDOS gaming isn't a bilinear 320x200 16:10DOS PCs aren't better than the MacintoshDOSBox is not for running Windows 9xSGL != Glide

Well, the fact that they dropped 3Dnow! instructions a couple of years ago could work to our advantage or our disadvantage if we try to get them to do it. Either way, this thread wins on so many levels. Feipoa you're the man, also many thanks to the rest of you people that helped with the tests. You guys win on so many levels:

F2bnp wrote:Well, it will probably be too much of a hassle for just this one game. AMD made some pretty heavy tweaks to Quake 2 to really show off the power of 3Dnow!But it's just Quake 2, I don't think there's really any other game that shows such improvement.So in the end, its your call. I just found it fun to do these tests :D.

Let's wait to see if someone volunteers to measure the performance gain of a Winchip2 in Quake 2 w/3DNow! enabled. If so, then I'll amend all the AMD and Winchip data.

Thanks! Unfortunately, I haven't written much by way of analysis (yet?). I'm waiting for a) time, b) the retro itch. I have noticed a few minor mistakes, which need to be fixed at one point.

For example, there are two Intel P55C, 262 MHz listings on the Overall chart with different scores. This is correct, however one of them should have an "SS7" suffix to denote it was run on a Super 7 board. Another curious point is, why the C3 Nehemiah at 600 MHz, 66 FSB scored 0.5 points higher than the C3 nehemiah at 600 MHz, 100 FSB. Again, refering to the Overall Performance Chart.

It would be good to cross-reference some of this data in the Vogons wiki. Someone noted on the wiki, "When overclocked to 262MHz or further, it [the P55C-262] provides exceptional performance no other Socket 7 CPU can match", which these 686 results seem suggest there being socket 7 CPUs with better performance. For overall performance, these socket 7 CPUs (66-83 MHz FSB) beat the P55C-262 on an Intel 430TX board,

Rise mP6-208
Cyrix MII 233-333
AMD K6 262-300

Looking at the FPU performance, these socket 7 CPUs (66-83 MHz FSB) beat the P55C-262 on an Intel 430TX board,

While I do not dispute the P55C-262 is an exceptional performer, I think the K6-300/333, when run at 75x4 or 83x4 may be just as good, or better. Note that I have omitted the K6-2, and K6+ series because it is more debatable that these are Super7 CPUs, although they will run on many 430TX boards.